It amazes me that out of 5 hf radios, the best sounding radio I own is in my atlas 210. It is more sensitive and quieter that any others. The noise blanker actually works. Just the noise floor is much quieter than the others just idling. Blows me away considering the lack of crap packed in the box. Unfortunately with the finals being discontinued I hate to run it hard. I’m starting to think that I’m going to start going backwards into older rigs for hf.
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Best transciever I’ve got
- Thread starter nfsus
- Start date
yes, older rigs! I like older transistorized radios.
I have the Atlas 215x, and sometimes I check into some
vintage radio nets. I power the RF power amplifier section
and the rest of the radio in parallel with a regulated
13.8 VDC supply and use an old Cobra CB mic. I get signal
reports and even E-mails commenting on how good that
radio sounds, like a new radio. These radios are
bare bones simple circuitry. You can keep them going
almost forever.
the only thing is a little frequency drift, and the way the
VFO is built, if you bend the chassis, or bang on the radio
it shifts in frequency a bit. But when these radios came
out in the 70's, that was OK back then.
I just got rid of a Kenwood TS-450, unrepairable due to
unobtainable ASICS in the DDS circuit.
I mainly use an old Cubic Astro 103, made back in 1984.
I have the Atlas 215x, and sometimes I check into some
vintage radio nets. I power the RF power amplifier section
and the rest of the radio in parallel with a regulated
13.8 VDC supply and use an old Cobra CB mic. I get signal
reports and even E-mails commenting on how good that
radio sounds, like a new radio. These radios are
bare bones simple circuitry. You can keep them going
almost forever.
the only thing is a little frequency drift, and the way the
VFO is built, if you bend the chassis, or bang on the radio
it shifts in frequency a bit. But when these radios came
out in the 70's, that was OK back then.
I just got rid of a Kenwood TS-450, unrepairable due to
unobtainable ASICS in the DDS circuit.
I mainly use an old Cubic Astro 103, made back in 1984.
Today is a good example. I was cruising around 3.9 somewhere, you know how these things track, and I was enjoying these fellers rag chew. For fun I kicked off the nb and the noise floor came way up but still those guys were in there. Pulled the rf gain back 1/4 and it was good enough even without the nb turned on.
Flipped over to the icom 718 and I couldn’t defeat the noise for nothing. No matter how I adjust the nb or nr I couldn’t get rid of the noise. Couldn’t barely hear those guys over the noise. And the 718 worked fine last night around the same freq.
Flipped on the yaesu 847 and pretty much the same thing.
Can’t beat older simple tech sometimes.
Flipped over to the icom 718 and I couldn’t defeat the noise for nothing. No matter how I adjust the nb or nr I couldn’t get rid of the noise. Couldn’t barely hear those guys over the noise. And the 718 worked fine last night around the same freq.
Flipped on the yaesu 847 and pretty much the same thing.
Can’t beat older simple tech sometimes.
If you ever burn the finals up in this radio, they can be replaced with MRF454, still in production. If you're willing to do a few modifications, you'll also get a noticeable improvement in power output. The link for this modification is below.
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